Bio-fuels contribute to hunger and climate change

Anglican Journal reports:

...there are people around the world who are starving because more and more land is being dedicated to cash-rich fuel crops like corn instead of food.

These were some of the points raised at a recent forum, Connecting the dots on the food crisis, sponsored by Kairos, the Canadian ecumenical justice organization, of which the Anglican Church of Canada is a member. The forum explored the root causes of the food crisis in the Global South, including the push for agro-fuels in rich countries like Canada and the U.S., the decades-long liberalization policies of governments, and the growth of agri-business transnational corporations.

John Dillon, program co-ordinator of Kairos, talked about how large-scale agro-fuel production for export has not only given way to hunger but also to exploitation of farmers who work in “slave-like conditions” in plantations, most of which are owned by trans-national corporations that enter into joint ventures with local landlords. (For example, since the U.S. cannot supply all the demand for corn ethanol, agri-business corporations have been importing agro-fuels from Asia, Latin America, and Africa.)
.....
Ethanol was supposed to have been a better, cleaner fuel, but studies have shown that its production actually accelerates climate change. “While burning ethanol produces about 12 per cent to 13 per cent less greenhouse gases than petroleum, it is not a ‘clean’ fuel since it also emits carcinogens and increases atmospheric ozone,” said Mr. Dillon in a briefing paper published in 2007 where he cited a study conducted by the U.K.-based Institute of Science in Society. For instance, sugarcane is burned before harvest or forests are burned in order to clear it for palm oil plantations, causing a massive release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

With ethanol increasingly getting a bad reputation, many corporations are now looking for the next big fix, said Mr. Dillon, adding that cellulose is now being touted as an alternative. Mr. Dillon said groups like Kairos prefer to push governments to push in the direction of energy conservation and efficiency, and a re-examination of the pattern of consumption in the West.

“A study by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office found that reducing gasoline consumption by 10 per cent through an increase in fuel economy standards would cost consumers and industry about U.S. $3.6 billion a year,” said Mr. Dillon in his paper, Are agrofuels alternatives to oil? “To replace the same amount of gasoline by producing more ethanol would cost over US$10 billion in government subsidies.”

Gasoline Tankers and Black Swans

Bishop Marc Andrus of the Diocese of California writes following the tanker truck accident in the Bay area.

Gasoline tankers and black swans
May 1, 2007 at 12:39 PM
“Huge leaping flames from an exploding gasoline tanker melted the steel underbelly of a highway overpass in the East Bay's MacArthur Maze early this morning, causing it to collapse onto the roadway below and virtually ensuring major traffic problems for weeks to come.”


This was the opening of the San Francisco Chronicle article on the MacArthur Maze crash on Sunday, April 29.

Monday night, April 30, we had the Taize’ service in Grace Cathedral. The diverse, devout crowd of 240 people who chanted and prayed for their communities’ deepest concerns had come from all over the Bay Area, many from areas affected by the crash. Students from CDSP took BART; people from Walnut Creek and other East Bay communities took BART. They were all smiling about the experience.

I think this crash, expensive, terrifying, inconvenient, is what we might call a “black swan” event. The great American poet, James Merrill, in his poem “The Black Swan,” has a very Anglo little boy, in a field of white and light, see a black swan on a pond. At the end of the poem, in ecstasy the boy exclaims, “I love the black swan.”

Unintended, unimagined events, wrecking our models and our plans, can lead us to where we need to be, can be occasions of love, and produce the happiness and mode of life for which we long at the deepest level of our being.

As many of you know, I didn’t have even our low emissions/high fuel efficiency hybrid car when I first came to the Diocese. Everything was walking, bus, or BART. I re-learned some things during those months: I was happier being with humanity while traveling, than in my wondrous car (even with its six-CD changer, and the GPS); the people on the bus and BART often spoke to me about their faith, their search for God, their desire to connect with a church, and moving on the earth while leaving a smaller carbon footprint was satisfying.

We need to make an effort to reduce our carbon emissions. Maybe this black swan event is an invitation to change our way of life, to consciously maintain the forced, unlooked for change and embrace it, to say, “I love the black swan.” Try to take public transportation twice during the workweek, or to walk or ride your bicycle to work twice a week. And, if you can afford it, look into your next car being a hybrid. Or, follow the example of my friend, Marion Grau, who teaches theology at CDSP, and do most of your smaller travel by foot and bicycle, and when you need to drive use a shared car. She says that the shared car organization of which she is a member works so well that even if she requests a car the day before she needs it, she usually gets it.

The spiritual truth here is that the ways of God, humility and simplicity, are not only good for our planet, our beautiful home that is in so much trouble, but also produce happiness in us, as we align ourselves with the image of God within and among us.

My Report

We went on a trip to see the grandchildren. We drove the car which is somewhat more efficient than flying according to what I have read. Living in Wyoming there are not many public transportation options. We drove 55-60 mph although the speed limit ranged from 65-75 depending on the state. It improved our mpg average 2 miles per gallon over the 3000 mile trip. At the coast we walked most of the time even to the recycling center (LOL). Not so great "green" life when we were in the city over the weekend.
My latest contribution to the earth is to stop all catalogs. We currently fill our recycling crate with catalogs that we never even read. We use the web to order without reference to catalogs. Now when a catalog arrives, I use the 800 number to call the company and have them stop sending theirs. In 2 days I have called 7 companies. They all say I will receive a few more as the catalogs are set up for production and mailing long before the date.
I recruited some more people to use the local recycling collection service.
So my scorecard is sort of plus/minus this month.

Another Reason to Ride Your Bicycle

Besides saving gas by riding your bicycle - the exercise will help you lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. Healthy for you and healthy for the planet.
Read "Weight gain of U.S. drivers has increased nation's fuel consumption by James E. Kloeppel HERE

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — As American waistlines have expanded since 1960, so has their consumption of gasoline, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Virginia Commonwealth University say.

Americans are now pumping 938 million gallons of fuel more annually than they were in 1960 as a result of extra weight in vehicles. And when gas prices average $3 a gallon, the tab for overweight people in a vehicle amounts to $7.7 million a day, or $2.8 billion a year.

The numbers are added costs linked directly to the extra drain of body weight on fuel economy. In a paper to appear in the October-December issue of the journal The Engineering Economist, the scientists conclude that each extra pound of body weight in all of today’s vehicles results in the need for more than 39 million gallons of extra gasoline usage each year.

Read the rest HERE